Chilly Reunion
by GuileandGall
Summary: An ambush at Techiix on Voeld allows Bain Massani and the pathfinder a chance to get reacquainted.


**Summary:** An ambush at Techiix on Voeld allows Bain Massani and the pathfinder a chance to get reacquainted.

 **a/n:** Written to fulfill a Spectre Requisitions request from moxana, specifically Request 7. They requested some Bain Massani/F!Ryder smut with the suggestion to let my imagination run wild. So, I did just that. So, this is an extra treat for them playing right into my particular interests.

 **Chilly Reunion**

 **-1-**

The laughter of angaran children peeled off the icy cavern walls. Maritza smiled wide as she entered Techiix, taking off her helmet and ruffling her hair with her gloved hands. The cold breeze chilled her exposed skin. At the moment, it was bracing, but in twenty minutes, she knew it would probably give her the chills. Somewhere in the camp someone sang a song she didn't know the words to, but the melody held a somber note. The translator did it little justice so she tried to ignore it and just enjoy the music.

Before the tension of the day could unknot from her shoulders, she heard a low growl. Her helmet thudded to the ground and she drew her Talon. She knew that sound. Her keen violet-gray eyes scanned the perimeter for sign of the beast she was certain she heard. Another growl, but this time from her right.

 _Crap!_ "Wraiths," she said under her breath, just loud enough that her crew picked it up. "Jaal, get those kids out of there. Vetra go le—"

She didn't finish her statement before the beast lunged at the angaran child chasing their ball as it bounced away. Ryder charged the beast, placing herself between it and the frightened kid. The move knocked the girl to the ground, which started the crying and screaming, and scrambling.

"I got you," a voice said from behind Maritza. It was a deep, human voice with a familiar cadence. And the screaming faded away as the pathfinder tried to press her arm deeper into the jaws of the beast gnawing on her—in an effort to get it to let go. When it seemed to fail, she resorted to punching it in the eye.

With a yowl, it released her arm, which Maritza shook down to her side. The omni-blade unfolded and she jammed it into the wraith's only unarmored facial soft spot available—the eye socket. Its legs slipped out from under it and the beast collapsed to the ground.

Nearly a half dozen other kett beasts had appeared at the mouth of the cave, between her team, the angaran forces, and the owner of that recognizable voice, they were dispatched easily.

"Are they okay?" Maritza asked Jaal, breathlessly as she sprinted over to where he had positioned himself to snipe the beasts.

"Yes, the girls are fine. Well, they are unscathed," he corrected, "but quite upset."

"I can imagine." Her breathing eased with that information.

Both of their attention turned to the quickly approaching footsteps that crunched against the cold ground. "Are you all right?"

Maritza's chest tightened when she looked up into his green eyes. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Trying to defrost before I head back out," Massani replied with an easy laugh. He took Maritza's hand in one of his, laying the other on her shoulder, as he inspected the arm that had been in the wraith's mouth. "You play chew toy often, Little Duck?"

His smile and the care he took checking her over froze her heart beneath her ribs. "Not if it can be avoided," she replied, easing her hand out of his.

The awkward reunion was interrupted by more fast footfalls and the opening of a door that allowed the sniffling and crying of children to escape into the stillness of the cavern.

An angaran slipped past Bain and wrapped his thick arms around Maritza. "I can't possibly thank you for what you did," he said. As quickly as he embraced her, he turned away to embrace the kett hunter at her side as well.

Bain was taken aback. He patted the angara's side once as he thanked him. "Uh, glad to help," Massani replied with tense awkwardness in his tone.

The father ducked into the historian's work space, where the girls had been whisked away to, by Bain and Jaal. The angara pulled one of the girls out of the arms of a female angara and cuddled her against his chest like any protective father might.

With the arrival of family, the girls, cousins it turned out, calmed quickly. One walked up to Ryder and Massani and with the same unabashedness of her father, she wrapped an arm around each of their legs and hugged them. The pair looked at one another, then the girl.

Once she released them, Maritza crouched down to her level. "I'm just glad you're okay," she said giving her a sweet smile and a pat on the shoulder.

"Yeah, what she said," Bain added with a crooked, uneasy grin.

When her father held out his hand, the young angara returned to her family and they walked deeper into the compound.

Maritza glanced at Massani. "Very eloquent."

"What?" he asked with a shrug.

She laughed. "Little girls leave you stammering often?"

"You tell me." With the challenge, he took a step toward her. The intense gaze he held her in made it harder to breathe, and more difficult to control the blossoming desire to grab him by the collar and kiss him.

Somehow, she managed it. Taking a slow step back and a deep breath, she felt a bit more in control. "Seriously, Bain. What are you doing here?"

His lips pursed as he exhaled a deep breath through his nose. Clearly, he hadn't wanted her to replace the scant distance between them. "Happened across a scout ship in the Anasa system, led me to a small outpost here. Got intercepted by a patrol that was transporting some chained up and injured angara. Freed them and brought them here."

"Oh," Maritza replied, not sure how to reply to that. She had been ready to hear something more along the lines of _hunting kett, what do you think?_ not the rest. "Well, good."

"You sound disappointed."

"No, of course, not." _It was only a tiny fib, not even a lie really._

He leaned toward her, his voice lowering to that frequency that reverberated along her spine with a tingle. "Would you have preferred me to say I was following you?"

A small voice in the back of her head yelled, _YES!_ But she didn't respond to it even with a flinch. She just stared him in the eye. "That would be a ridiculous reason to come to Voeld."

"I don't know about that," he replied, never breaking her gaze. "I can think of far worse reasons to visit this ice ball."

 _Really?_ She bit the inside of her cheek. The butterflies in her stomach and the rock in her chest did nothing for her sense of self. She felt foolish. _How could he affect her like this?_ she wondered. _Why are you acting like some foolish schoolgirl? Get your shit together, Mari._ "Like?"

"Oh, perhaps attempting to make friends with the Roekaar, or looking for a new family pet," he chided.

 _Curse that damnable smirk_. "True. Not sure eirloch make for cuddly companions."

"No, they can be a bit … testy."

"True," she replied with a laugh and a smile.

"It's good to see you, … Pathfinder."

How she hated to hear him call her that. It wasn't the name she wanted to hear pass his lips. Even _Little Duck_ would have been preferable to _Pathfinder_.

"Yeah." She nodded at him, her smile fading a little more. "Good to see you, too, Bain." Maritza gave him nod and walked away, making her way to Buxil's lab. Finding the angara waiting for her made shoving the encounter with Bain into the back of her mind much easier, at least for a time.

 **-2-**

Bain leaned on the headboard of the bed in the hostel, staring at the images that faded from one to the next in the small frame in his hand. When the door opened, he stashed it in a pocket on his trousers. His jaw tightened when Maritza walked in.

Judging by the way she stopped just inside the door and stared at him, he wasn't the only one surprised by the other's presence.

"Of all the gin joints," he said with an easy smile, which widened when she laughed.

"Thought you were just thawing out."

"I am." He poked at his thigh and grimaced. "Not quite there yet."

"Yeah," she laughed. "It's a tough proposition on Voeld."

"To say the least."

Silence bloomed. The uncomfortable tinge to it was no surprise. Massani tried to be polite and not watch her pull her armor off, but it was too familiar—the slope from her neck to her shoulder, which curved down to a well-muscled bicep. The sound of the zipper on her undersuit lowering twisted his gut and tensed his jaw. Glancing up, he noticed she only pulled out one arm.

"Damn," he breathed, sliding off his bunk. He'd crossed the space before the reasonable part of his brain could even suggest it was a bad idea. He took her hand, looking over the patchy half-moon-shaped bruising on both sides of her forearm. It curved just over the joint of her elbow. "That thing really tried to take a chunk out of you."

"Yeah. Well, wraiths can be troublesome."

"You sure nothing's broken?" he asked, his eyes finding hers as she looked up at him.

"No, I'm fine. It's just going to be sore a day or so."

"Spoken like a woman that's done that more than once."

"Surely, you've been bitten once or twice yourself."

Bain smirked at her. "Usually I don't let them get that close."

"Normally, I try to avoid it myself." Her laughter made him smile.

He'd missed her, but then he knew that before he saw her approaching the mouth of the cave, before his heart launched into his throat when he saw her toss her helmet aside and charge that wraith to save a child.

"You did good today."

"So, did you."

Massani shrugged. "Figured getting her out of the way would give you space for that discharge thing you do."

"Yeah," she nodded, looking away.

His index finger slipped under her chin and pulled her gaze back to his. He really didn't want to relinquish it yet. "I meant it."

"Meant what?" she asked, her brows pulling together with curiosity.

"I …" He nipped the corner of his mouth with his teeth and shifted gears. "It really is great to see you."

"Oh," she replied. He felt her chin press against his fingers, but he didn't budge. "Umm. So, did I?"

Desire outweighed logic and he bent toward her. When she didn't pull away, he brushed her lips with his own. The scant pressure of her lips puckering against his was all the influence that infatuated side of him needed to kick the reasonable part in the shins and run with the moment. His fingers smoothed along her jaw, brushing past her earlobe, so he could cradle her head in his hand. When her lips parted, the kiss deepened with ease. It felt so familiar, so comforting.

He was barely conscious of the instinctive moves their bodies took in this heady dance. He didn't notice her legs open, or his own shift him into the offered space. Though when her cold hands slid beneath his sweater, he hissed and pulled away just enough to grab her wrists. Immediately, he missed the proximity.

"Guess I'm not the only one who needs to thaw a bit. Come 'ere," he said, pulling her off the bed near the door and toward the solar heater in the center of the room. On the nearby shelf, there were extra blankets folded up. Bain grabbed one and wrapped it around her, pulling her close again. He rubbed at her shoulders and upper arms through the warm blanket, catching her grinning at him.

"What?" he asked with a suspicious smile.

"This is your best idea?"

Massani chuckled. "You have something else in mind."

The only answer she gave was the clever upward flick of one eyebrow. Her hands weren't much warmer and when they inched up his sides again, though the intake of breath through his teeth wasn't as pronounced. He didn't put up a fight as she encouraged him out of the sweater. When she opened her arms to share her blanket, there was no hesitation in his embrace. Taking her in his arms, he kissed her again and tried not to think too much about the way she looked at him; he paid even less mind to the thoughts about what he wanted that look to mean.

The salt on her skin stung his tongue, but he craved the distinctive tang. He kissed his way down her neck, to her shoulder as he pulled at the suit to free her other arm. There was a faint chill to her bare skin as he pulled her body against his. Perhaps she'd been right. This planet could chill a being to the bones; and they could warm one another to the core.

Taking turns to help the other strip, eventually only the blanket remained. Somehow, they managed to keep draped around them. Guiding her back a step, Massani pressed her back against the wall. The cold didn't seem to bleed through. With that assurance, he kissed a blazing trail down her body, only pausing to tease a few gasps and moans from the pathfinder. Kneeling at her feet, he cast a glance upward before guiding her leg over his shoulder.

 **-3-**

Those vibrant green eyes held her attention. The way he moaned against her, his eyes slipping closed with what she could only hope to describe as his enjoyment of her excitement, left her breathless. As his mouth teased and sucked at her sensitive spots, her hands lowered, fingers tracing his ears while her hips rocked forward. "Damnit, Massani," she hissed as her head dropped back. Tremors rocked her body and if it hadn't been for the grip he had on her, Maritza was nearly certain she'd have melted into a heap on the floor.

He lowered her leg with care and planted soft, lingering kisses over her belly. Impatient, she pulled his lips back to hers. Tasting herself on his tongue intoxicated her. She broke the kiss, then spun the blanket around his shoulders. "Sit," she ordered after taking a quick glance around the room. The chair near the heater was the perfect spot.

Bain didn't argue, but when Maritza started to lower herself to her knees, he tugged at her hand and pulled her onto his lap. "Little Duck," he growled, "I want to feel you again."

She didn't argue. Couldn't. She wanted that as well. Her hand slipped between them as his calloused fingers cruised up her thighs, pulling the blanket around them both. A few teasing strokes preceded her guiding his thick cock to her entrance. In a smooth motion, her hips met his. There was a content hum in his throat as she took up a slow pace on his lap. His hand at the back of her neck pulled her lips to his again. The kiss only broke for shallow gasps of breath necessitated by biology, while strong chemistry set a smooth, salacious rhythm.

When his hand tightened on her hip, sharpening and shortening her strokes, Maritza complied but shifted her hips just so. The shift in the angle teased her clit as he growled—clearly, the change wasn't just good for her. Her arms rested on his shoulder as she leaned her forehead against his. Exchanging every breath, her gaze locked on his. Neither looked away, Maritza couldn't. She wanted to see his eyes in that moment. She what she'd missed the last time.

"Fuck, Maritza," he groaned. His head pressed against hers and eventually his eyes closed for a half a heartbeat. Her own orgasm followed his. Their hips popped against one another with reckless abandon in the pursuit of pleasure. She hugged his shoulders tight as her head fell backward in a moment complete silence, before a deep moan broke free from her throat. Her body moved, chasing every second, every minute sensation as his lips and teeth scraped at her neck and collarbone.

As she stilled, Bain's palms smoothed down her back and she loosened her grip on him. He made no effort to move, nor did Maritza. When her eyes met his again, she kissed him, lingering there on his lap, in his embrace.

"I missed you, Little Duck."

Only for a moment, did she think how much she hated that nickname. Though somehow, right then it was a welcome moniker. "Me, too," she agreed, brushing her lips against his. Soft, sweet pecks dotted his mouth. "Do these rooms have a shower?"

"Yeah, but the bathroom was a bit chilly earlier," Massani said. "Maybe you shouldn't go alone."

"That's probably a good idea. What would a back scrub cost me?"

He tipped his head to the side. "I don't think you could afford it."

"Try me."

Bain tucked his hand under her legs and let the blanket fall as he stood with her draped around him. "We'll talk terms later."

Maritza hummed her agreement. Their lips touched, their noses, too, in fluttering smooches as he bore her across the room to the small communal shower.


End file.
